(UPDATED: October 8, 2024 – 3:30 p.m.)
After years of traffic crashes, local, county, and state governments are collaborating to make roadway improvements to a dangerous, highly traveled segment of the White Horse Pike.
Properly known as U.S. Route 30, Collingswood Mayor Jim Maley described the state highway that runs from the Oaklyn border to Route 130 as “our worst stretch of road in town.”
It encompasses two key intersections, at Newton Lake Drive and Collings Avenue, that routinely see vehicle crashes resulting in serious injuries and death.
Two pedestrians were transported to the hospital with injuries sustained in collisions with vehicles at North Newton Lake Drive in 2019 and 2023; crashes in 2021 and 2023 killed two others.
On Friday, representatives from the New Jersey Department of Transportation, including newly confirmed Commissioner Francis O’Connor, met with local and county officials for 90 minutes, toured the intersection, and discussed safety improvements.
“The commissioner came down here with safety and traffic engineers,” Maley said. “The look that’s being done is comprehensive,” and includes “short-term fixes with an eye to redoing the pike.”
Technological solutions discussed include pedestrian beacons, roadway striping, and improved crosswalks with pedestrian detection and signal timing.
Broader solutions could include reducing the speed limit, which is currently 35 miles per hour in that area, introducing a road diet, and expanding street parking to slow vehicle traffic.
“Improving crosswalk time here will go a long way,” Maley said. “People shouldn’t risk their lives to walk from Parkview to CVS.”
On a longer timeline, officials say the state plans to fully reconstruct two sections of the White Horse Pike.
In an e-mail, NJDOT Press Manager Steve Schapiro said the Division of Traffic Engineering is in final design of a capital project that will make improvements along two sections of Route 30 from Cooper Street in Camden City to Grove Street in Haddon Heights.
“The first covers two miles from Cooper Street to North Park Drive/CR 628, and the second section is three-and-a-half miles from Park Avenue to Grove Street,” Schapiro wrote. “Collings Avenue and Newton Lake Drive are within the second section.”
That project is expected to begin construction in spring 2026, Schapiro wrote, and it includes:
- roadway milling and paving
- upgrading 14 traffic signals
- replacing substandard sidewalks, curbs, and guiderails
- bringing existing handicap curb ramps current with ADA standards
- upgrading pedestrian push buttons, signal heads, and other amenities at signalized intersections, and incorporating ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) improvements
- evaluating worn paths for potential sidewalk connectivity
- connecting to the multi-use bike path that crosses North Park Drive and the Cooper River bridge
Camden County Commissioner Lou Cappelli, himself a Collingswood resident, spoke about the work aligning various levels of government to devise solutions for improving safety at the intersection.
“We want to commend and thank the [DOT] commissioner and his team,” Cappelli said.
“Our number-one priority is improving roadway safety; getting permanent changes to the road.”
Those changes will fall along short- and long-term schedules, respectively, beginning with roadway safety improvements at the intersections of the White Horse Pike and Collings Avenue as well as at North Newton Lake Drive.
Collingswood Police Chief Kevin Carey said that roadway in question has been studied in earnest since March 2024, when the borough participated in a $400,000 initiative to increase traffic enforcement among the 14 municipalities bisected by the White Horse Pike.
Those funds were provided by the state Division of Highway Traffic Safety, and Carey did not immediately have the results of the study available. To date, the only fatal highway crash in Collingswood in 2024 happened on Route 130 in May.
However, the chief did speak about the difficulty even enhanced enforcement actions have in correcting driver and pedestrian behavior.
“After a few months, it tends to revert,” Carey said.
“A lot of the incidents come from the 1,000 apartments here,” the chief said, indicating the impact on pedestrian volume at the intersection driven by the Parkview Towers, many of whose residents cross the pike to access the small businesses on the other side of the Pike at Collings Avenue.
“Any time you can engage the county and state partners, it’s going to be beneficial,” the chief said. “Bureaucracy is a real thing. Government takes time.
“We deal with it locally,” he said. “To have the commissioner down here speaks volumes about how they look at traffic safety.”
